Not PC

. . . promoting capitalist acts between consenting adults.

Saturday, June 18, 2005

The ‘problem’ of initial acquisition

Philosopher and academic Gerald Cohen has a problem with how values come into the world; how they came to exist. He calls this ‘the problem of initial acquisition.’ I call it trivial idiocy, but he and his supporters set great store by it.

Cohen argues that all the world’s resources were originally ‘jointly owned’ and therefore like Proudhon he claims that all property is therefore theft. “Why was its original privatization not a theft of what rightly should (have continued to) be held in common?” he asks.

There is a ‘dilemma’ in this ‘theft,’ says Cohen:

1. The acquisition of most natural resources was by force. 2. Either force made the acquisition illegitimate or not. 3. If it did, then governments may now rightfully confiscate and redistribute it. 4. If it did not, then governments may now rightfully confiscate it and redistribute it. 5. Hence, either way, if force was the source of the initial acquisition, then governments may rightfully redistribute current holdings.

You will observe then that he follows Marx’s programme for the abolition of property as advocated in point one of the Communist Manifesto, and that he makes the same error as Proudhon of stealing the concept of ownership in order to argue against it – as Marx himself pointed out.

But let’s be clear: he is advocating theft. Ironically, Proudhon wasn’t advocating anything of the sort; unlike Cohen, he was being ironic. “Property in its modern form…,” Proudhon went on to say, “may in fact be considered as a triumph of Liberty. For it is born of Liberty, not, as it may first appear, against right, but through the operation of a better understanding of right.... There is a corollary to this principle, that property is the only power that can act as a counterweight to the State…”

Indeed. And this is what Cohen is arguing against. He wants a State large enough to give him anything he wants. As Thomas Jefferson pointed out, such a State is big enough to take it all away again - and take it away big governments frequently do.

In any case, Cohen's claim that the world is or ever was “jointly owned” itself requires some support. Where's his evidence for this? Quite apart from stealing the very concept of ownership, to which Cohen can certainly claim no right, the claim is absurd on its face.

If, for example, the island on which Robinson Crusoe were to find himself turned out be be vast -- turned out to be, say, the coast of West Australia -- then Crusoe would have no more claim to an ownership share in the entire continent of Australia than would an aboriginal tribe living 2,500 miles away on the New South Wales coast, and in no sense can either be said to have ever ‘jointly owned’ the whole continent. In fact, if those two locations were the only Australian locations to be inhabited, then no one would own Australia – it would in fact not be jointly owned as Mr Cohen claims, but entirely unowned, with the exception of course of the small area that each group or each person is using to sustain themselves. They would notbetween them own all of Australia; they would each only own what they owned. Having recognised that, we can see that, contra Cohen, Crusoe no more takes food out of the mouths of those 2,500 miles away on the opposite coast than those living there do so out of his, and it is fatuous to base an entire argument on the assertion that they do.

This argument of initial acquisition is of little importance outside the academies; it is of little importance for three very simple reasons:

1) Most land isn’t acquired by theft anyway, except in those few remaining bastions of Marxism that still follow Mr Cohen’s antediluvian social model.

2) Most ‘propertyin such and such’ is in things other than land: sweaters, for instance; cars; laptops; skyscrapers; cyclotrons; the beer in my fridge, etc. Was the ‘initial acquisition’ of my Dell Inspiron 8000 done by force? Of course it wasn’t. Would I retaliate if you tried to take the beer out of my fridge? Of course I would.

3) As I’ve said before, most importantly, most property is in things that have been brought into the world as a new thing that did not previously exist. In such things the producer has a clear natural right. In this respect, John Locke's argument that property rights come from "mixing one's labour" with nature is clearly lacking, but James Sadowsky's 'entrepreneurial theory of property' offers support. As Sadowsky points out:Examples of good judgement do not necessarily involve production, or even any real labour. It may for example be doing something as simple as moving something from one place to another. A jug of water for example is more valuable in the Sahara than on the shores of the Nile. Moving it there adds value, and makes the world wealthier. If I moved it, that new value is mine. (Note here that if that ownership right is not recognised and the water is taken away, I might very well die of it. This shows again the important connection between the right to property and our right to life, and the consequence for the latter if the former is taken away.)

In fact, it 'entrepreneurial' activity such as this that explains how all wealth is built. Wealth and property are not created by theft, but by moving things from lower value to a higher value (see for example my brief explanation of wealth-creation in 'The Miracle of Breakfast.'), whether that is done by trade, or by recognising a resource where it did not previously exist, or by creating a value where it did not previously exist. It is not, as John Locke asserted, that the mixing of our labour with property justifies our right in that property; what make sit ours is that we have mixed our minds with what exists to bring a new thing into existence.

So Cohen has a problem with ownership and with wealth. He doesn’t like it, and he clearly doesn’t understand it. To use his example, if I own a sweater, Cohen maintains that somehow deprives someone else of that sweater – as if a) there are only so many sweaters to go around, and b) the sweater was plucked from a sweater tree jointly owned by all of us, and not produced and brought into the world by a certain individual who has the rightful claim of ownership of that sweater, and who may then wear it, destroy it or use it to trade for other goods or services – just as I did with the producer in order to take possession of the sweater.

But that sweater-producer owes a debt to others, you say. To whom? To the person who claims he is deprived of it because he doesn’t want to offer him a value in exchange? To that moocher he owes nothing but contempt. To the shepherd? The wool-sorter? That debt has already been paid: they each produced part of the sweater, and each exchanged the value of what they produced for a greater value, such as their own beer vouchers to put their beer into their own fridge.

How about the people who ‘jointly owned’ the sheep, or who ‘jointly owned’ the fields in which the sheep were grazing then? Get outta here. Neither fields nor sheep are any more ‘jointly owned’ than is the beer in my fridge. Enclosing an unused field takes away nothing from anyone else. Buying a used field from one who has already enclosed it takes away nothing from anyone else. Growing sheep on that field takes away nothing from anything else, and brings into the world a new value that never previously existed – as in fact does each stage of this process, from enclosure to shearing.

If it were I that enclosed that bought that field and produced those sheep, then these newly produced values are mine, and I have every right to them. Producing these values and trading those which are surplus to my requirements is what keeps me alive, and allows me to stock my fridge.

So if Mr Cohen wants one of my beers, let him ask nicely. And let him realise too that a beer tastes best when you know you've earned it.

[UPDATE: Updated and slightly revised, 24 September 2005]

The owner of [such] property performs an entrepreneurial function. He must predict the future valuation that he and others will make and act or not act accordingly. He is ‘rewarded’ not primarily for his work, but for his good judgement.

Cue Card Libertarianism -- Force

The precondition of a civilised society is the barring of physical force from social relationships – thus establishing the principle that if men wish to deal with one another, they may do so only by means of reason: by discussion, persuasion and voluntary, uncoerced agreement. – Ayn Rand.

Rand’s formulation is similar to earlier injunctions against force by such thinkers as Auberon Herbert, Herbert Spencer, and Wilhelm von Humboldt.

It is important to note that it applies not to all use of force, but to specifically to the initiation of its use. Force is never justified when initiated against others, but only when used to in retaliation against its initiators, i.e. in self-defence.

To rule out force used in self-defence -- or to collapse the distinction between initiatory force and force used in retaliation by labelling both as 'violence' -- does not remove aggression, it rewards it.

'Non-violence' invites agression, it does not disarm those who choose to ignore your 'peaceful protest.'

It’s important to note also that the notion of physical force is not intended to be confined to direct acts of first-strike violence, but also their precursors and derivatives, e.g. threats and fraud – intimidating or deceiving someone into a course of action to which he would not otherwise have consented.

The essence of the evil of force is that it is the negation of a person's mind and the choices otherwise freely made, effected by an attack or the threat of attack on a person’s body and/or property. It is an assault on his distinctively human attributes, his very essence as a human being. It is only by such direct physical coercion that man's rights may be violated, by compelling him by force to act against his own judgement.

People generally have no difficulty identifying and condemning individuals who coerce other individuals, but they are conditioned to accept and applaud coercive behaviour by governments. Therein lies the challenge to libertarians!

This is part of a continuing series explaining the concepts and terms used by libertarians. Originally published in The Free Radical. The 'Introduction' to the series is here.

Don't be smart

The Onion has a point here when they say "I can't think of anything ruder than people who have to be all brainy and intelligent. As my mother used to say, if you can't say anything mundane, don't say anything at all."

Coalition options

The Fairfax poll released this morning suggests 68% of people polled say they want coalition preferences known before the election.

As I've said before here, in my opinion the presumption of coalition is not necessarily a good oner for a minor party.

Every coalition party in the MMP era has either been burnt by being too close to power (think Alliance), or is simply irrelevant (think Progressive). Which raises the question: How exactly should a minor party act when confronted by holding the balance of power?

If they're principled and in favour of more freedom and less government, then they have no problem: they can simply say "We will support every measure that advances freedom without introducing any new coercion." And then they would do so. Such support would be reliable (as long as freedom is advanced) and consistent. Such a policy is that followed by the Costa Rican libertarian party Movimiento Libertario, who hold 5 of Costa Rica's 57 Congressional seats, and it's worked fine for them.

I explain here how the studious application of this principle would suggest that killing the entire front bench of Government in their beds would be unprincipled; and here (scroll down to 'We'll get our fair share of abuse') how this principle would rule out support for a flat tax, for educational vouchers, and for state welfare being a 'hand-up and not a hand-out.'

Seems to be that principled support such as this is better for everyone involved, and would certainly advance freedom while concentrating people's minds on what exactly "new coercion" looks like. There's plenty of it about at present.

Friday, June 17, 2005

Liberty's birthday

120 years ago today, the Statue of Liberty arrived in New York Harbour from France as a gift to the American people from the people of France. Her creator, sculptor Frederic Bartholdi called her "Liberty Enlightening the World."

For generations of new Americans, it was their first glimpse of America as their ship came into New York Harbour; for others around the world it is still a symbol of the advance of liberty.

Happy Birthday, Libbie.

[ See how you score on this Liberty Trivia challenge. I got 94% -- not that I'm boasting of course -- but for some reason it refuses to believe Emma Lazarus is the author of 'The New Colossus.' ]

The New Colossus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,With conquering limbs astride from land to land; Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall standA mighty woman with a torch, whose flameIs the imprisoned lightning, and her nameMother of Exiles. From her beacon-handGlows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes commandThe air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

Hey, Che

Another birthday to commemorate today, that of Che Guevara, immortalised in the 'Motorcycle Diaries' and on countless bedroom walls, a man who "was monumentally vain and epically stupid. He was shallow, boorish, cruel and cowardly. He was full of himself, a consummate fraud and an intellectual vacuum. He was intoxicated with a few vapid slogans, spoke in clichés and was a glutton for publicity." Not my words, but those of this guy.

In short, Che was just a cheap thug and a murderer. So to mark his birthday, Duncan Bayne has a better poster than the one you usually see, and a photo of his corpse. I guess he's glad Che's gone.

When breast is not always best (reposting)

Liz Weatherly, a mother of three from Torbay, is spearheading an effort to have the Human Wrongs Act amended to protect women who breastfeed on other people's property from being asked not to. The petition follows in the path of much other legislation ensuring that that the views of property owners are ignored, so she has every chance of succeeding.

Weatherly it was who was asked by an Auckland Early Childhood Centre some eighteeen months ago not to breastfeed her nearly-three-year-old at the centre without first discussing it with the centre's owners. Instead she removed her child from the school, waited a year and then called the Holmes Show, who she told she was "not after publicity."

Kyoto cockup

See here what it's cost the world so far, and what the World's average temperature is on a moment-by-moment basis.

And see here how the G8 "has removed plans to fund research and put into question top scientists' warnings that global warming is already under way." They "also explicitly endorse the use of 'zero-carbon' nuclear power." Environmentalists might want to think about joining them in that endorsement...

Creating a class system

More from the credit where credit is due file:

You might remember me discussing the myth that in free markets the rich get richer and the poor just stay poor. I quoted Walter Williams and Thomas Sowell, who make the point that it's not rich businessmen who keep the poor in penury, it's the dumb white liberals.

Rodney Hide has some evidence of this with the Working for Families scheme introduced by Little Steve Maharey. Now, as liberals go there's surely few dumber than Little Stevie, and this programme is sure going to keep families poor. As Rodney says, "It doesn’t matter how hard you work – you can’t improve your lot. It doesn’t matter either if you slack off – your income stays much the same...That’s the re-creation of a class sytem – everyone stuck where they are now are."

The miracle of breakfast

There'll never be a perfect breakfast eaten until some man grows arms long enough to stretch down to New Orleans for his coffee and over to Norfolk for his rolls, and reaches up to Vermont and digs a slice of butter out of a spring-house, and then turns over a beehive close to a white clover patch out in Indiana for the rest. Then he'd come pretty close to making a meal on the amber that the gods eat on Mount Olympia.
- O. Henry

Of course, O. Henry wrote those words nearly a century ago. And he wrote them with a wink.

We need neither long arms nor a big breakfast table to feast on this breakfast of the gods -- we enjoy it now, as O. Henry did then. All that's needed is the division of labour and the freedom to trade; the 'invisible hand' of the market does the rest. As Adam Smith said,

"It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self-interest."

The butcher, the brewer and the baker "direct [their] industry in such a manner as [their] produce may be of the greatest value," and we are the beneficiaries of their labours -- each "intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention."

There's nothing miraculous about Smith's 'invisible hand,' it is simply the recognition that when each producer trades the fruits of their labour, they each win by that trade.

In the words of the economists, when I trade my apples for my neighbour's oranges to the goods are moved from 'lower value' to a 'higher value'; that is, I value the oranges more than my apples, and my neighbour values my apples more than his oranges. The sum result of this and every voluntary trade is that both traders win - everyone kicks a goal! -- and from each trade new wealth is created thereby: the economy is greater for the sum of the higher values achieved, and my breakfast table is richer by some freshly squeezed orange juice.

The same is true when I pay for butter from Vermont (or the Waikato) to be brought to my breakfast table: the chain of trades necessarily increases the wealth of all involved. Frederic Bastiat identified the miracle himself when observing that sleeping Parisians worried not about their next breakfast:

On coming to Paris for a visit, I said to myself: Here are a million human beings who would all die in a few days if supplies of all sorts did not flow into this great metropolis. It staggers the imagination to try to comprehend the vast multiplicity of objects that must pass through its gates tomorrow, if its inhabitants are to be preserved from the horrors of famine, insurrection, and pillage. And yet all are sleeping peacefully at this moment, without being disturbed for a single instant by the idea of so frightful a prospect. On the other hand, eighty departments have worked today, without cooperative planning or mutual arrangements, to keep Paris supplied. How does each succeeding day manage to bring to this gigantic market just what is necessary - neither too much nor too little?

Paris gets fed. How?

Bastiat of course knew the answer to this seemingly complex puzzle: what ensures that Paris is fed is freedom. More specifically, an individual's freedom to think, choose, act, produce and to trade his produce with other individuals for his own reward.

By working to satisfy his own needs and wants, the free individual produces new values, and makes life (and breakfast) better for all of us who have ourselves produced something to trade with him. The 'miracle of breakfast' is that it is really no miracle at all. It is the fruit of freedom.

Thursday, June 16, 2005

I want to be a consumer, sir

Poetry afternoon here. See if you can spot the logical fallacy in the following poem by Patrick Barrington, originally published in 'Punch' in 1934. Don't say I never give out clues.

"And what do you mean to be?"The kind old bishop saidAs he took the boy on his ample kneeAnd patted his curly head."We should all of us choose a callingTo help society's plan;Then what do you mean to be, my boy,When you grow to be a man?"

"I want to be a consumer,"The bright-haired lad repliedAs he gazed up into the Bishop's faceIn innocence open-eyed."I've never had aims of a selfish sort,For that, as I know is wrong,I want to be a Consumer, Sir,And help the world along.

"I want to be a ConsumerAnd live in a useful way;For that is the thing that's needed most,I've heard Economists say.There are too many people workingAnd too many things are made.I want to be a Consumer, Sir,And help to further trade.

"I want to be a ConsumerAnd work both night and day,For that is the thing that's needed most,I've heard Economists say.I won't just be a ProducerLike Bobby and James and John;I want to be a Consumer, Sir,And help the nation on."

“But what do you want to be?”The Bishop asked again.“For we all have to work, as must,I think, be plain.Are you thinking of studying medicineOr taking a bar exam?”“Why, no!” exclaimed the ladAs he helped himself to jam.

I want to be a ConsumerTo do my duty well;For that’s the thing that’s needed most,I’ve heard Economists tell.”And so the boy resolved,As he lit a cigar, to say:“I want to be a Consumer,Sir,And I want to begin today.”

Top twenty searches for Not PC, to June 16th

Some new but still odd searches. Galt knows what Benny Elias fans found to excite them, except perhaps that he's probably a knuckle-dragging moron. (As always, all searches are Googled unless otherwise noted.)

"What nuisance?" And who came to it?

What sort of person moves next door to a chicken farm and then complains about the smell?

The sort of people who live in Inglewood in Taranaki perhaps, who come to the nuisance and then seek to make windfall profits from someone else's destruction. Story here.

I have no sympathy for people like Greg and Debbie Mitchell of Humphries Street Inglewood who move into a place knowing there's been a chicken farm just across the fence since 1966 and then complain about the smell. Neither does the common law -- at least, not in some jurisdictions. In some jurisdictions, where the common law is unenumbered by statute law such as our own Resource Management Act, the principle of coming to the nuisance would apply.

Not here. According to the Regional Council Hearings Committee decision, the business of Inglewood chicken farmer Dallas Green must close within five years.

Whilst most if not all of the submittors have `moved to the nuisance', the fact is that this is no longer an appropriate location for this type of operation... The operation is now bounded on both sides by small lot residential development with no buffer areas of rural land. This is a classic `reverse sensitivity' situation.

If land prices do rise enough, then eventually it will become uneconomic to farm chickens there ayway, but this council have basically given this farmer five years to clear the decks and bugger off.

Pakistani justice on menu at Musharraf trade talks?

His arrival has prompted some suggestions that Pakistan is not really a country that we would want to do business with -- at least not at arm's length -- and the 'judicial gang rape' of Mukhtaran Bibi followed by the gag order placed on her does seem to highlight the human rights problems in this 'enlightened Islamic' country.

Former Pakistan citizen and now an American, Irfan Khawaja has had enough of supporting Musharraf's role in the war on terror. "I've offered my reluctant share of 'We-have-to-support-Musharraf- because-there-are-no-better-options' excuses up to this point, but I'll never offer another," he says. "Time to see through the General's power-lusting charade, and time for the Bush Administration and the State Department to put the pressure on this fascistic pretender to the throne."

Irfan's full commments are here on his blog, including more links to further related stories. So the question arises again, is trade a tool of liberation as I argue here in the case of China? And can it help in the Pakistani case?

Is there anything else that will? Do we want to punish the Pakistani people for the infractions of their leaders? Perhaps Clark and Goff can at least join in 'putting pressure on this fascistic pretender to the throne' through the trade deal, as NRT seems to be arguing for:

Mukhtaran Bibi may have been silenced by the Pakistani government, but Helen Clark has not. And she should use her meeting with President Musharraf to be a voice for the voiceless, to demand both Bibi's release and an end to the obscene tribal justice system which abused her in the first place.

I agree with him.

[UPDATE: Following the NYT story to which I linked above, a US State Department spokesman has said, "The government of Pakistan informed us today that Ms. Mai has been removed from its Exit Control List, permitting her to travel out of Pakistan." The New York Times says there are still questions to answer.]

Schiavo autopsy

Schiavo's brain was about half the size of a normal brain, damaged beyond any possible hope of recovery.

There are no signs that she was abused (by her husband or otherwise) as some had claimed, though it remains unclear what caused her to fall into a vegetative state in the first place.

Remember those carfully edited clips that purported to show Schiavo following a balloon with her eyes? Well, turns out she was blind.

Does it matter? Probably not: I expect most people put the whole circus out of their minds long ago, while for the true believers, this is doubtless just further evidence of how elaborate and sinister is the anti-life conspiracy to hide the "truth."

Stateless standards

The Mises Institute has an interview here on how markets protect consumers better than governments do. Beyond laws against force and fraud, as NZ libertarians advocate are necessary, is anything else really necessary -- or even desirable?

'McJobs' a foundation for success

Thomas Sowell is having a go at the notion of 'dead-end jobs.'

Many low-level jobs are called "dead-end jobs" by liberal intellectuals because these jobs have no promotions ladder. But it is superficial beyond words to say that this means that people in such jobs have no prospect of rising economically....You don't get promoted from such jobs. You use the experience, initiative, and discipline that you develop in such work to move on to something else that may be wholly different. People who start out flipping hamburgers at McDonald's seldom stay there for a full year, much less for life...

The real chumps are those who refuse to start at the bottom for "chump change." Liberals who encourage such attitudes may think of themselves as friends of the poor but they do more harm than enemies.

Bill of Rights birthday

This week marks the birth of the worlds' first real Bill of Rights, which oddly enough occurred in Virginia in 1776, nearly a century after England's landmark Bill of Rights of 1689.

In contrast to the "rudimentary" English version on which it was based, says historian Bernard Schwartz "the Virginia Declaration of Rights of 1776 was the first modern bill of rights, since it was the first to use a written constitution to insulate individual rights from the changing winds of legislative fancy."

The larger lesson here is that health care isn't immune from the laws of economics. Politicians can't wave a wand and provide equal coverage for all merely by declaring medical care to be a "right," in the word that is currently popular on the American left.

There are only two ways to allocate any good or service: through prices, as is done in a market economy, or lines dictated by government, as in Canada's system. The socialist claim is that a single-payer system is more equal than one based on prices, but last week's court decision reveals that as an illusion. Or, to put it another way, Canadian health care is equal only in its shared scarcity.

So okay, I do mean the NZ health system. Replace 'Canadian' with 'NZ' in the above and the argument is the same, isn't it?

Building slums while banning growth

The same high-density planning imposition that Mother Hucker wants to impose in places like Glenn Innes and Panmure to make building slums compulsory are the same impositions planned for 51 'nodal developments' from Pukekohe to Warkworth that are zoned for minimum densities greater than Central London, and these impositions come from the same planning mindset that is already making it virtually impossible to build at all outside the Metropopitan Urban Limit (MUL). Don't believe me? Then listen up.

But listen first to the Eastlife Community newspaper, whose editor has had a good look at what's going on and says, "The planners have really gone to town on this one and if you're the type that gets bothered about social engineering then it might pay to pop a few heart pills before you start."

"So what's the 'Metropopitan Urban Limit'?" I hear you cry. Good question. ' Here's how the Auckland City Council planning department defines the 'MUL': "... a planning technique used to define urban limits and limit sprawl on rural areas. It is a line drawn on regional planning documents to define the allowed extent of urban zoning. Sometimes called Urban Limits or growth boundary." So there you have it. It's where the planning busybodies have waved their pen, making properties on side one more valuable (those 'within the growth boundary') than those on the other side.

What's new now is that the Auckland Regional Council's planners have upped the stakes. With the so-called Smart Growth of 'Plan Change 6' they've decided 'Countryside Living' -- that's the stuff you do outside the 'growth boundary' -- is “unsustainable” because, get this, it “undermines public transport.” They mean it. This 'plan change' is in essence a plan to end countryside living and to make rural New Zealand a National Park.

They do mean it. Manukau councillor and former Olympian Dick Quax has listed just a few of the projects outside the ARC's MUL already facing problems or predicated on this nonsense:

Beachlands and Maraetai are outside of the Metropolitan Urban Limits (MUL). Plan change 6 states that urban activity is prohibited outside the MUL. This means that, schools, kindergartens, churches will not be able to set up in Beachlands, Maraetai or Kawakawa.

The proposed Flat Bush development undertaken by the Manukau City Council is driven by the philosophy that says that Auckland must not grow outside the MUL. Quite clearly this has created an artificial scarcity of available land. This artificial scarcity has the effect of driving up the cost of land shattering the plans of the middle or low income people to owntheir own house.

The ARC has objected to an application to the Rodney District Council to develop a daycare centre in a rural zone on the grounds that it should be an urban activity.

The ARC is the sole objector to a proposal to redevelop the old Villa Maria winery in Mangere on the basis that this will allow urban activities in a rural area.

Small farms are the most rapidly expanding activity within the rural economy. From all accounts the ARC now requires that any new small farm must be developed within the MUL or within existing townships.

Even the countryside bed and breakfast establishments will be outlawed because they are not supported by public transport.

But there's just no rationale for any of this. As Quax points out, "The notion that Auckland is running out of land is simply not so. Urbanised land in New Zealand only occupies 0.8% of all land available. Even the most densely populated country in Europe, Netherlands which has a population density of 400 people per square kilometer (NZ has 15 per square kilometer) has only 7% of its total area urbanized. The remainder is forested or used for agriculture."

"It is a fact of life," says Quax, "that the vast majority of us are just too busy getting on with our lives to pay much attention to matters such as the Auckland Regional Growth Strategy, the Local Government (Auckland Amendment) Act or plan changes that will affect how we live, where we and most importantly our quality of life." Tough. Time to get involved and start fighting back if you want to protect your property rights.

Owen McShane says "the ARC's proposed Plan Change 6 represents the greatest intervention into our personal freedoms and property rights ever proposed under any land use legislation in New Zealand." That's even worse than Owen's beloved RMA!

Pressure on the ARC's politicians has already brought a result, reports the Herald this morning: "The chairman of the Auckland Regional Council, Mike Lee, is calling for an overhaul of the region's controversial growth strategy, including a freeze on intensification plans in suburbs like Glen Innes in the meantime. "

Don't believe a word. From the same article Mother Hucker says "the growth strategy was basically sound and needed no overhaul," and Lee declares "Yes, it is sensible to intensify areas like the CBD and around rail corridors but I would like to look at a more necklace-like approach whereby we look at centres along the rail corridor such as Pukekohe, Te Kauwhata in the Waikato and north to Helensville and Kaukapakapa for a hamlet-type township approach." He's not backing off at all, is he? He advises that "a look at growth from a broader perspective [is] needed, to get a national policy statement on population and development."

What is needed is to give these busybody blowhards the bum's rush, and to get our property rights back. It is the Local Government Act and the Resource Management Act that have allowed this travesty to be contemplated. You can't say you weren't warned.

Winamp is my new net enthusiasm (I still like Firefox but). It's so good, you have to download it yourself, which you can do here, then scroll down to 'SHOUTcast TV' and look for the channels currently playing Penn and Teller -- there appears to be something of a marathon at the moment. And do try and avoid all the 'live nude girl' shows ... if you can.

Graham Kelly, diplomat

Well , Graham Kelly is clearly no diplomat. And we might remember that as Labour Housing spokesman our present High Commissioner to Canada called for all State houses to be lifted up and turned north to face the sun. So apart from causing offence, being an idiot, and being a Labour party hack, is he any sort of historian?

Well, if you read his comments in the speech he gave to the Canadian Senate -- the one that has now got him in so much trouble -- you might well wonder why he chose a senate inquiry as a place to break into stand-up comedy (perhaps he thought that compared to the Canadians he might be considered a humourist), but apart from the usual exaggerations for comedic effect I can't see that he's historically incorrect in what he's reported to have said.

So is it now 'racist' to tell the truth and to joke about it? Are we all just too bloody ready to be offended?* As Stephen Fry said in the 'Blasphemy Debate,' when someone says to you as if it's the final word on a matter 'I'm offended by what you said,' the correct answer is "So fucking what?"

A spiritual quest

Two inspiring reflections on libertarianism came to mind as I was putting together this piece, a rather mechanical argument for libertarianism put together to answer a critic, as I explain here.

What the merely mechanical arguments miss is the idea that the battle for freedom is a 'spiritual quest.' It's true. Author Nathaniel Branden puts the case in his essay'Foundations for a Free Society' (which appeared in 'Free Radical' #21):

[p]eople have not only material needs, they have psychological needs, they have spiritual needs. And it is the spiritual needs that will have the last word. Until the libertarian vision is understood as a spiritual quest and not merely an economic quest, it will continue to face the kind of misunderstandings and adversaries it faces today. ... A free society cannot flourish on a culture committed to irrationalism. And 20th-century philosophy has witnessed a virulent worldwide rebellion against the values of reason, objectivity, science, truth, and logic — under such names as postmodernism, poststructuralism, deconstructionism, and a host of others.It's not an accident that most of the people doing the attacking also happen to be statists. In fact, I don't know of any who aren't. You cannot have a noncoercive society if you don't have a common currency of exchange, and the only one possible is rational persuasion. But if there is no such thing as reason, the only currency left is coercion.

Further,

We cannot talk about politics or economics in a vacuum. We have to ask ourselves: On what do our political convictions rest? What is the implicit view of human nature that lies behind or underneath our political beliefs? What is our view of how human beings ought to relate to one another? What is our view of the relationship of the individual to the state? What do we think is "good" and why do we think so?Any comprehensive portrait of an ideal society needs to begin with identifying such principles as those, and from that developing the libertarian case. We do have a soul hunger, we do have a spiritual hunger, we do want to believe and feel and experience that life has meaning. And that's why we need to understand that we're talking about much more than market transactions. We're talking about an individual's ownership of his or her own life. The battle for self-ownership is a sacred battle, a spiritual battle, and it involves much more than economics.

All very true, and all too easily forgotten. Ayn Rand summed it up in her 1938 novella Anthem (her own 1984/Brave New World), first published in England one year before World War II:

I am neither friend nor foe to my brothers, but such as each of them shall deserve of me. And to earn my love, my brothers must do more than to have been born. I do not grant my love without reason, nor to any chance passer-by who may wish to claim it. I honor men with my love. But honor is a thing to be earned. I shall choose friends among me, but neither slaves nor masters. And I shall choose only such as please me, and them I shall love and respect, but neither command nor obey. And we shall join our hands when we wish, or walk alone when we so desire. For in the temple of his spirit, each man is alone. Let each man keep his temple untouched and undefiled. Then let him join hands with others if he wishes, but only beyond his holy threshold.

If you enjoyed reading this small sample, you might enjoy hearing the climactic speech of the book in MP3 form. The executive producer of the audio recording, Bob Bidinotto has the sample here.

Tuesday, June 14, 2005

Hell of an apology

Hell Pizza is offering a free boogie board and a "holiday that could last a lifetime" to Bali to one lucky person who enters a poll asking which politicians should be "sent to Hell" for their sins.The winner also gets "an extra $500 ... if they get a photo of themselves with Schapelle Corby."

This has apparently prompted wowser Australians to complain, to whom Hell Pizza have offered an apology. Sort of. "In the art of reciprocation," they say the Hell Pizza MD will only apologise if the Australian government themselves apologises for a list of things including:

Fosters and XXXX

Ignoring the refugee kids chucked over boats off the coast of oz

Big Brother and all other car crash tv

Hunting aborigines up until the 1970s

Apologise to the stolen generation (54% of ozzies already think the govt should)

Claiming Neil Finn and Phar Lap

The govt allowing British scientists to test nuclear weapons on aboriginal land in the 1950s - land marked "uninhabited".

Pauline Hanson.

All the immigrants to oz wrongfully locked up in detention centres

The angry Australian actor beating up on poor hotel workers

Australian Idol

The underarm bowl......

An Australian has not yet been found to comment on the sin of taking umbrage.

RMA kills $6.5 million exhibition centre

Do you think National's Tauranga candidate Bob Clarkson knows who introduced the Resource Management Act? Does he realise that it was National's Simon Upton that introduced the RMA, and National's Nick Smith who administered it after Upton left for his sinecure in Paris?

Clarkson built and paid for the $15 million Blue Chip Stadium, "used for conferences, rugby and concerts as well as housing the Baypark speedway," but has just abandoned plans for a $6.5 million exhibition centre next door due to bureaucratic hassles and fourteen months of delays caused by -- you guessed it -- the RMA.

"I have been hit in the pocket. There is actually a bottom to the barrel."

So far, [reports the Herald] pursuing the necessary consent had cost him $100,000 "and we haven't even got started yet"...

He accused "people in places of power" of being small-minded. "I run on adrenalin and I had a passion to get this thing underway. But I can't have my dream interrupted all the bloody time. It's unrelenting."

It's hard to knock a man when he's as all-fired go-getting as Clarkson obviously is, but do you think he knew what he was doing when he signed on to the National Party ticket?

Michael Jackson verdict

Two views on China

Mark Steyn looks at China today and sees "a cunning simulation of external wealth and power that is, in fact, a forbidding false front for a state that remains a squalid hovel."

Sheldon Richman looks and says "some people just can’t take good news. They have to look for the gray lining in every silver cloud. ... The new anti-Chinese hysteria makes less sense than the old did. When will we get it through our heads that it is good for others to get rich? It makes us even richer."

Economically, the Chinese are freer than they used to be. Chinese entrepreneurs can raise capital, and foreigners can invest their money, to create productive enterprises. Chinese workers have far more choices than they used to have. The result has been stunning economic growth and an export boom fueled by low-priced high-quality products.

Steyn's point perhaps is that this success may not be sustainable as long asthe authoritarian regime remains in place. "Betting on Beijing," he says, "will find the China shop is in the end mostly a lot of bull." But as I argue here, it is possible that trade with China will itself be a tool of liberation that eventually means the demolition of the 'squalid aithoritarian hovel.' As Richman says, "although China still has a communist-inspired authoritarian government, this is not your father’s Red nemesis. Much has changed in the world’s most populous country." Trade and prosperity is what is making that change possible.

Monday, June 13, 2005

Crystal Heights

The 2005 Big Mac Index

The Economist's authoritative 'Big Mac Index' has just been released, naturally prompting discussion about the relative strengths and weaknesses of currencies, and the notion of purchasing-power-parity (PPP) which underpins this 'index.' Oddly, no discussion is had on whether or not McD's new Deli Rolls will serve to undercut or supplant the Big Mac Index any time soon.

The cheapest Big Mac is in China and the most expensive in Switzerland. NZ falls in between, with our Big Mac price the closest of those measured to the US, and if these figures are to believed suggesting a 4% over-valuation. The Economist notes also that "the euro buys less burger than it should," "suggesting "perhaps inflexible wages, not a strong currency, are to blame."

The Big Mac index, which ['The Economist' has] compiled since 1986, is based on the notion that a currency's price should reflect its purchasing power. According to the late, great economist Rudiger Dornbusch, this idea can be traced back to the Salamanca school in 16th-century Spain. Since then, he wrote, the doctrine of purchasing-power parity (PPP) has been variously seen as a “truism, an empirical regularity or a grossly misleading simplification.”

The Salamanca school themselves can be considered proto-Austrians; the Mises blog discusses the Salamancan theory of purchasing-power parity and its modern incarnation here.

Iraq war pits 'freedomist' against 'libertarian'

A question frequently asked of me is 'Why are some libertarians for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and some against?' Why for example are libertarians at Rockwell.com and antiwar.com against the war against terrorism, and me for.

I've answered that question about my support by arguing in summary that 1) libertarianism is not necessarily isolationist, 2) that anyone has the right to liberate a slave state, though not a duty to do so, and that 3) in the context of Arab terrorism Saddam Hussein, his subterfuge over weapon inspections, terrorist activity, and his military-industrial infrastructure taken together constituted an objective threat.

But that still doen't answer the question itself. On the first of those issues, Democide researcher , Nobel Prize nominee and former libertarian R.J. Rummell suggests that libertarians have become isolationists, and his argument illuminates and helps answer the question posed above.

Rummel now calls himself a 'freedomist' (unneecessarily in my view), and he recently issued a challenge at his Freedomist Network blog to any anti-war libertarian "who wishes to make a reasoned argument for isolationism, or from a libertarian perspective, an argument against our war in Iraq. I will respond in a page, and then the libertarian will have a page to rebut me."

The challenge is here. The response to this, from Tom Knapp is here, followed by Rummel's response and Knapp's rebuttal. And just so you know Knapp's credentials, Robert Bidinotto raises them here and here.

So why has Rummel abandoned the name 'libertarian'?

[L]ibertarian is what I called myself until recently. I remain libertarian in domestic policy, which is to say the more domestic freedom from regulation, government control, taxation, and oppressive laws, the better up to a point. I am not an anarchist, but believe social justice means minimal government consistent with protecting and guaranteeing all have equal civil and political rights.

However, on foreign policy the libertarian, with some exceptions, is an isolationist, fundamentally opposed to foreign involvements and interventions. Let international relations also be free, the libertarians say, which means free trade and commerce, and freedom for other countries to do whatever they want with their people. Not our business.

On this, the libertarians are blinded by their desire for freedom, not realizing that everything, including freedom demands contextual qualification (should those with a dangerous infectious disease remain free, when they could spread it far and wide, killing maybe hundreds with it?). By their isolationism, libertarians are making the world safe for the gangs of thugs (called dictatorships) that murder, torture, and oppress a people, and rule by fear.

Now, I agree entirely with him that "by their isolationism, [some] libertarians are making the world safe for the gangs of thugs (called dictatorships) that murder, torture, and oppress a people, and rule by fear." I agree that this issue has divided libertarians, but this libertarian doesn't see the need to change my 'name' -- the inconsistent isolationists can do that.

Building the slums of tomorrow

Glen Innes residents are protesting the imposition of "high-density housing [says the Herald] fearing it will be a social disaster, bring more crime and reduce private property values. "

Public concern about intensification within a 10-minute walk of Glen Innes town centre comes amid controversy over a regional masterplan to squeeze half a million Aucklanders into mostly apartments and terraced homes by 2050.

I criticise the thinking behind that 'regional master plan' here as bringing East Germany to East Auckland in the name of trying to banish the car. Let me stress, there is nothing necessarily wrong with either high-density or low-density housing if done well (Georgian London and rural New England, for example, are very nice places to live): what is wrong is planners imposing their own choices on an unwilling public and on unwilling property owners; particularly when the model the ARC planners insist on imposing is a failed East European model that will ensure only that we are building the high-density slums of tomorrow.

What's wrong with leaving people free to choose for themselves the way they want to live, and free to build their choice on their own property (with all the necessary common law protections involved)? To do that we will need to get rid of the RMA, and of the country's planners. To paraphrase Voltaire, it will be a great day when the last planner is strangled with the guts of the last city councillor.

Legal warning for bloggers

A timely legal warning to bloggers this morning about breaking legal boundaries on blogs, specifically about naming those like Graham Capill who have been granted legal protection.

I haven't seen the "storm of opinion on the internet" that the Herald says they've seen about this, but their quoted expert "Professor Burrows said he has seen plenty of comments on blogs which breach the law, and added that authors could face legal action if they are traced."

DPF is quoted as saying bloggers "breaking defamation and name suppression laws are the exception rather than the rule," and I'm inclined to agree that such cases are exceptional. Which means perhaps that we NZ bloggers (and those who post comments on our blogs) just aren't doing our job properly.

Fighting back against the thugs

Well done to the Whitianga shopowner who disarmed and knocked unconscious the knife-wielding thug trying to rob the store.

Herald story here, which begins with the story of the brave Serbian shop-owner who faced down armed attackers in his own Henderson store on Saturday night. "'He showed me the gun," said Mr Dikanovic. "I started to laugh and said, 'What do you want with that toy gun? I am from Serbia and have been in three wars'."

Sunday, June 12, 2005

The police can't come ...

Cue Card Libertarianism -- Freedom (Liberty)

Freedom: One of the most abused and mis-used words in the language; in its authentic sense, libertarianism’s raison d’etre.In its positive aspect, the right to exercise one’s rights – the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of property and happiness.In its negative aspect, “The absence of coercion or constraint in all choice or action that does not inflict force or fraud on another.” (‘John Galt’, Dreams Come Due.)Or as TFR’s Editorial Policy puts it, “the absence of compulsion from human affairs.”

Freedom is freedom of action, not the subsidised “freedom” from disagreeable circumstances promoted by statists.It is freedom to exercise and act on one’s choice and judgement, and dispose of the fruits thereof as one sees fit, not freedom from hunger, hardship, etc.One is free to seek food and comfort, but not to force others to provide them.One is free to sustain one’s own life, but not to take or enslave another’s.The right to the pursuit of property and happiness is not the right to be guaranteed them by others.Freedom is “not freedom from the landlord, or freedom from the employer, or freedom from the laws of nature which do not provide man with an automatic prosperity.It means freedom from the coercive power of the state.” (Ayn Rand)

This is not an arbitrary distinction of convenience; it reflects the fact that lies at the very source of rights – that human beings have free will, which is a faculty of individuals, who therefore should be left free to exercise it.Anyone who tries to prevent an individual from exercising it, may be prevented from doing so.(This is the legitimate, retaliatory use of force referred to under Force.)

This “qualification” does not mean that freedom is not absolute; it is part of its absoluteness.The right to life is not limited by there being no right to kill; it includes and demands it.The right to liberty is not limited by there being no right to enslave; it includes and demands it.The right to the pursuit of property is not limited by there being no right to steal; it includes and demands it.The right to pursuit of happiness is not limited by there being no right to impose values; it includes and demands it.Whatever is being defined in a definition that permits the denial of freedom, is not freedom!

Observe the concept of freedom encompasses the mental and the physical.“Intellectual freedom cannot exist without political freedom; political freedom cannot exist without economic freedom; a free mind and a free market are corollaries.” (Rand)

In those periods and places in history where minds and markets have been freest, material progress has been greatest.Because of the prevalence of collectivist doctrines of one type or another, these periods have been brief, notwithstanding that it is man’s nature to be free.(Historically, one might say, freedom is an aberration; metaphysically, it is the norm.)This century is the late twilight of one such period.Can we fast-track to dawn without another long, dark night?

Recent blogs on freedom here at Not PC may also be of interest, here and here.

This is part of a continuing series explaining the concepts and terms used by libertarians, originally published in The Free Radical in 1993. The 'Introduction' to the series is here.

Kiwi carnival - "Bring out your posts!"

Now here's a brilliant idea from Philosophy et cetera. With the tremendous growth in the NZ blogosphere he proposes a 'Carnival of NZ Bloggers.'

There are so many kiwi blogs around that I can't keep track of them all. So it would be nice to have a weekly or fortnightly roundup of the best posts from around the country. As with the Philosophers' Carnival, this would serve to benefit both readers and authors. It might also benefit the kiwi blogging community as a whole, by encouraging dialogue across party lines, and promoting substantive debate over mere partisan hackery.

Each week (or however often we end up making it), each blogger may submit a single recent post of theirs, according to the instructions below. At the end of the week, the carnival "host" then creates a post which showcases all the submissions, offering a brief description and linking to each.

Naturally, as he has 'ownership' of the idea, 'Philosophy et cetera' (to whom I still owe a response -- it's coming, I promise) has offered to host the first Kiwi Carnival this coming Sunday 19 June.

Political abuse

Enough vitriolic political insults here to fill a scornful Sunday’s speech-writing. Feel free to send me in your own favourites, or (for those I've included from memory alone) your corrections:

Winston Peters is the only Member of Parliament named after a concrete block, and I can understand that.- David Lange

He’s probably been delayed by a full-length mirror.- David Lange on the reason for Winston Peters being late to a meeting

He is undoubtedly living proof that a pig’s bladder on a stick can be elected as a member of parliament.- Tony Banks on fellow MP Terry Dicks

SEN. TED KENNEDY: And when the Reagan administration was selling arms to Iran, where was George?"ANSWER: Dry, sober, and at home with his wife.- P.J. O'RourkeLORD SANDWICH: Youwill die either on the gallows, or of the pox.JOHN WILKES: That must depend on whether I embrace your lordship’s principles or your mistress.

Robert Mugabe is famous for nothing more than running around the jungle shooting people.- Robert Muldoon at a CHOGM conference held in Zimbabwe.

Bill Rowling is little more than a shiverlookingforaspinetorunupanddown.- Robert Muldoon

He opens his mouth and lets the wind blow his tongue around.- Bill Rowling on ?

Like being savaged by a dead sheep.- Denis Healey ofa verbal attack on him by Sir Geoffrey Howe.

Like being flogged with a warm lettuce.- Then-Australian PM Paul Keating on being verbally attacked by Opposition leader John Hewson

Like Woody Allen without the jokes.- Simon Hoggart on Sir Keith Joseph

Is there no beginning to your talents?- Clive Anderson to Jeffrey Archer

When he leaves a room the lights go on.- Anon. on Gordon Brown

When they circumcised Herbert Samuels they threw away the wrong bit.- David Lloyd George (attrib.)

SIR ALEC DOUGLAS-HOME: Tell me, Mr Chairman, what do you think would have happened if Mr Kruschev had been assassinated and not Mr Kennedy?CHAIRMAN MAO: I do not believe Mr Onassis would have married Mrs Kruschev.- Exchange at an official dinner

He is going around the country stirring up apathy.- William Whitelaw on Harold Wilson

If a traveller were informed that such a man was the Leader of the House of Commons, he might begin to comprehend how the Egyptians worshipped an insect.- Benjamin Disraeli on Lord John Russell

Mr Speaker, I said the honourable member was a liar it is true and I am sorry for it. The honourable member may place the punctuation where he pleases.- Richard Brinsley Sheridan, MP.

The two most powerful people in Russia are Czar Nicholas II, and the last person who spoke to him.- Anon.

It is fitting that we should have buried the unknown Prime Minister by the side of the Unknown Soldier.- Herbert Asquith at Andrew Bonar Law’s funeral. (Attrib.)

Tip Jar

In America, they tip. In NZ, we shout beer. If you like the service here at Not PC, drop a tip in the tip jar and you can do both.

Recent
Comments

The ‘problem’ of initial acquisition
"He calls this 'the problem of initial acquisition..' I call it trivial idiocy"

It is an important and legitimate issue, neither trivial nor idiotic though the solutions of some may be so.
Uh, PC...

You seem to be assuming that there has never been jointly owned property. That all property has historically been either individually owned or unused.

That's a very odd historical view: pretty much every society whose history I'm aware of has gone through having property being unused 'wilderness' to having the it come into use as 'commons' to having it then become 'private'. Nor are there necessarily sharp boundaries between these - traditions often slowly solidify regarding land use.

Are you denying the historic claims that the Maori held land in common? Likewise the Anglo-Saxon commons? The Norse common pastoral hill-lands?

Do you consider our beaches and foreshore 'unused'? I rather thought the big scrap we were having is because most New Zealanders do use them, and consider them part of the public commons?
Hi PC, I probably won't have time to respond to your more recent article until after my exams finish (i.e. a bit over a week). But in the meantime, I should point out that you have, in places, quite badly misinterpreted Cohen and myself. You have also repeated many of the mistakes I called you on in my previous thorough response - the section there on "PC's arguments" could also serve as a rebuttal to much of what you say in the present post.

I find it remarkable that you show so little concern for the origin of property rights, given how central they are to your philosophy. How anybody can acquire title over previously unowned material is a foundational question, and thus of the utmost importance. Without it, your entire philosophy crumbles away. That you consider this issue "trivial" says something about the superficiality of your political thought.

When Cohen asks “Why was its original privatization not a theft of what rightly should (have continued to) be held in common?”, he is asking a question that the libertarian must answer. But you have not answered this challenge at all.

(BTW, if you got that 5-step "force" argument from my blog, the source was Kymlicka, not Cohen.)

"But let’s be clear: he is advocating theft."

Um, no. It is theft to take another's legitimate holdings. But the question here is whether your holdings are legitimate in the first place.

"Cohens’ claim that the world is “jointly owned” itself requires argument."

We must distinguish two senses of 'joint ownership'. The first sense really just means "common unownership", i.e. everybody has access to the common resources. This is the traditional understanding of the 'state of nature', and you must explain how anybody could have the right to unilaterally appropriate natural resources and forcably prevent others from their use. Because that doesn't sound very respectful of others' autonomy to me.

The second sense of 'joint ownership' is that everybody actually shares property rights over everything, such that nobody may make use of the material world (which is partly others' property) without their consent.

Cohen never claims that the world is jointly-owned in this second sense. Though it isn't clear that the libertarian has grounds to rule it out in any case.

Now, to respond to your "three reasons":

1) That is simply false. If you trace back the historical record far enough, almost all property derives from the spoils of war.

2 & 3) "Nothing comes from nothing." Your fridge wasn't made from thin air. All property (barring, perhaps, so-called "intellectual property") contains physical material. So you still need to explain how you (or the manufacturers) could come to have absolute rights over the natural resources that went into the production of the object.

By taking and using the resource, you prevent others from making use of it. What right do you have to do such a thing, without their permission?

(Again, I discussed all this in section F, but you have simply ignored it.)

" So Cohen has a problem with ownership. He doesn’t like it, and he clearly doesn’t understand it. To use his example, if I own a sweater, Cohen maintains that somehow deprives someone else of that sweater"

You are seriously confused. Cohen's sweater argument is about freedom, not ownership. The point is that you will forcably prevent others from taking your sweater. That's not to say you are necessarily wrong to do so. Reread my section A on how you are confusing 'freedom' with 'rights'. It's frustrating that I have to repeat myself so often to get through to you. This is exacerbated when you make such ignorant claims as that Cohen "doesn't like" ownership and that "he clearly doesn’t understand it". How very ironic.

"Enclosing an unused field takes away nothing from anyone else."

Incorrect. It takes away their liberty to make use of that field themselves. That is the core issue here, that you keep refusing to adequately address.

(Funny that, you'd think I'd be used to you ignoring my arguments by now. Huh, oh well.)
"each group or each person would only own what they owned."

Well, duh. The question is, what do they own? Your answer, "what they owned", is indeed "trivial idiocy".

I'm not sure what relevance your Crusoe example has when compared to a world where resources are scarce rather than abundant. Not everybody gets to have their own island. Suppose a few more people wash up on Crusoe's island, which he had claimed for himself. What right does he have to prevent them from eating the coconuts? Why should we think that the coconuts are rightfully "his", merely because he got there first?

Worse still, what if Crusoe wasn't first? What if everyone had previously made free use of island's natural resources (i.e. "the commons"). But Crusoe comes along, sees that no individual yet privately "owns" the island, so he claims it for himself and tells everyone else to stop "stealing" from "his property". How are you to justify any of that?

That, you see, is the problem of initial acquisition.
Icehawk, you say "You seem to be assuming that there has never been jointly owned property. That all property has historically been either individually owned or unused."

No, I'm not saying that at all. I'm not at all sure how you take that from what I've said?
Richard, you still seem to be skipping over the points that answer your objections.

For example, you say, "Worse still, what if Crusoe wasn't first?" But that's the point, isn't it. If you're talking about 'intial acquisition' then ipso facto you're ~talking~ about ~the first~.

So, when talking about ~the first~ we're talking about a world in which people are scarce, in which Crusoe must produce his own values in order to live, and in which land is un-owned.

""“Why was its original privatization not a theft of what rightly should (have continued to) be held in common?”"

In common with whom? At the first tt's not jointly owned or 'jointly unowned' (talk about an anti-concept) it's simply there. To use. Fine.

In the Australian example I posit, both Crusoe on the west coast and the Aboriginal tribe on the east coast use what they need to live by, and hopefully to flourish. By doing so, Crusoe takes no food from the mouth of the Aboriginal tribe (or vice versa) since they are on opposite coasts, and neither is probably even aware of the other. Neither do they take food from anyone else, since if they're ~the first~ then there is no one else.They're it. Neither then do they take anything from anyone else when they each fence off the land they're using for their own survival, or stake out the quarry they're using to break rock to build their house, or tag the trees they're using to produce their fruit, or, etc....

In doing each of these tasks they perform an entrepreneurial action. They make the land -- the trees -- the rocks -- their own, and they do so at no one else's expense, since there is no one else around. They literally bring property into existence where it did not previously exist before, and by so doing bring a new value into the world. That value is theirs by right.

But, you say, "By taking and using the resource, you prevent others from making use of it." But there are no others at this point. Surely that's the point of an argument about 'initial acquisition.' Do you suggest Crusoe should wash up on the shore and refuse to touch anything on the principle that umpty-tum generations later you might feel like wanting some of that fruit or some of those rocks? But if Crusoe dosn't feed and house himself there won't be any later generations, will there? The argument is moot. And with property to secure production, there is likely to be more fruit available and better ways to shelter oneself -- as their has been. WIth property, new values are continually produced, as they have been.

You say, "Suppose a few more people wash up on Crusoe's island, which he had claimed for himself." If Crusoe's island is Australia, as it is in the example I use, and there is still land available on the continent of Australia then they may acquire it by the same means as he did. Of if they want Crusoe's land they may trade for it. In either case, neither steals anything from anyone else.

As I said, ownership isn't just about land. Ownership arises when you bring any new value into the world, including that new sweater about which your Mr Cohen is sweating so much. When for instance you bring up the idea of the Kiwi Carnival, then that's your idea. You brought it into the world. You own it. It's yours. If you want to make it freely available that's excellent (in fact in the case of the Carnival it's not much use if you don't make it freely available) but it's still your idea.

"You are seriously confused. Cohen's sweater argument is about freedom, not ownership. "

No, Cohen's argument is about stealing values that someone else has produced for their own use. That's theft. If you want the values I've got, then either ask for them, trade for them or produce your own. Mr Cohen notwithstanding, there is nothing that gives you the right to steal them. Theft is what it is.
Cohen never said you have any right to take the shopkeeper's sweater. That issue is entirely separate from the issue he was using that example for (namely, freedom). You're misinterpreting him.

Now, initial acquisition is not just about when there are few people with abundant resources. It also arises when you have many people and scarce resources (esp. land) that had previously been held "in common", as much land was up until a few short centuries ago. The libertarian needs to provide some account for how such land can be justly appropriated by an individual, when this then excludes others from using it.

"Do you suggest Crusoe should wash up on the shore and refuse to touch anything on the principle that umpty-tum generations later you might feel like wanting some of that fruit or some of those rocks?"

No, but that may be what the consistent libertarian ought to conclude, for otherwise Crusoe harms others without their permission.

Of course, a better option is to grant him a provisional (rather than absolute) property right, as I suggested in my post on intergenerational justice.

Note that you nothing you've said here explains why Crusoe has a right to forcably interfere with anyone who attempted to make use of "his" resources (once there are no free resources left over). Having a right to eat the local fruit does not entail having a right to prevent other people from doing so! So even if we grant Crusoe the former right, why should you give him the latter? You haven't justified that at all.

Many individuals in modern society are born into poverty. They have no resources to trade. Other people have already taken all the natural resources, leaving none for them. Don't you see the injustice in that? These impoverished newcomers are forced to sell their labour, as their body is the only possession they own (if you'll excuse the phrase). They are forced to agree to whatever (perhaps exploitative) arrangements others are willing to offer them -- their life is literally at the mercy of others. If all the capitalists arbitrarily refused to offer them work or money (as you must hold is within their rights to do) then the poor will starve to death, through no fault of their own. How can that be just? How could an initial appropriation of the material resources be justified, if it left others (i.e. these newcomers) in this dire situation?
Richard, you refuse to understand that when new values are created and brought into the world, they rightfully belong to the person who performed that entrepreneurial action.

"Many individuals in modern society are born into poverty. They have no resources to trade. Other people have already taken all the natural resources, leaving none for them."

So how does the world continue to get wealthier? How is it that Africa, blessed with natural resources is poor, while Hong Kong -- a 'resource-free' rock in the Ocean -- has more Rolls Royces per capita than the British Royal family?

The 'ultimate resource' is the free, independent mind, from which all wealth comes, and from which all value is produced. What value you produce you have a right to.

"... for otherwise Crusoe harms others without their permission."

Crusoe harms no one.

"Now, initial acquisition is not just about when there are few people with abundant resources...."

Let's stick with one starting point, shall we.
PC, you refuse to understand that nothing comes from nothing. Our "entrepreneurial actions" do not create material out of thin air, they transform one sort of resource into another (hopefully more valuable) one. In doing so, we prevent others from making use of that resource. You must face this fact.

Now, you cannot say that just because you transform something, you therefore have an absolute right to it. That's just a hopelessly inadequate account that would excuse all sorts of obvious injustices -- as I have repeatedly described.

How can you say that "Crusoe harms no one" when he forcably prevents other people (newcomers to the island, say) from taking the natural resources they need to survive? They will die, when if it weren't for Crusoe they could live. And you, laughably, deny that this is a "harm"!?
Richard, you said, "PC, you refuse to understand that nothing comes from nothing."

This would be called 'putting words in my mouth,' and rather silly ones at that. As you now recognise "Our entrepreneurial actions' ... transform one sort of resource into another (hopefully more valuable) one." Quite right. In some case that may not even involve production at all, but even by doing something as simple as moving something from here to over there - a jug of water for example is more valuable in the Sahara than on the shores of the Nile. Moving it there adds value, and makes the world wealthier.

"In doing so, we prevent others from making use of that resource." Richard, if we're discussing 'initial acquisition,' then they don't. If we're talking about 'initial acquisition,' which we are at present, then there is no-one else making any claim on the 'resource' we're taling about. I talk briefly below and elsewhere about what happens later, but lets stick to the point for now, huh?

"Now, you cannot say that just because you transform something, you therefore have an absolute right to it." I say that bringing into existence a new value makes that value your own. I can say that and I do. If you move a bottle of water to the Sahara, it's yours. Without it you're going to die, so it's worth your life to know that your property in it is protected.

"That's just a hopelessly inadequate account that would excuse all sorts of obvious injustices -- as I have repeatedly described."

On the contrary. As I've said and argued here and elsewhere, your descriptions of what you call 'injustices' have been not been injustices at all. As for example your claim here: "How can you say that 'Crusoe harms no one' when he forcably prevents other people (newcomers to the island, say) from taking the natural resources they need to survive?" But once again we're talking here about 'initial acquisition' not later developments, and as I've said before you can't expect Crusoe, when he's there on his own, to make future provision for every hypothetical possible visitor to the continent by depriving himself of a living.

Should you be making provisions at present just in case for example a galactic visitor from the future were to appear and demand 'resources' from you? Of course not. Should you keep a cake in the cupboard just in case more earthly visitors call? Maybe, but that's not a question of rights or demands, it's a question of generosity.

Hypothetical future visitors may make no just claim on Crusoe or on us, as I've said before, and if they want your cake or my bottle of water then they must ask nicely: in other words, you cannot demand of Crusoe or me that we sacrifice an 'actual' (ie., our life and property and well-being) to what is merely a potential, particularly as our life and well-being is no business of yours, and neither are the resources we're using, nor the values we produce with them.

"They will die, when if it weren't for Crusoe they could live. And you, laughably, deny that this is a "harm"!?"

Richard, this is just laughably inaccurate and ignores the clear record of history. Have a really good look for example at the early history of the Jamestown colony. If his property rights are secure, Crusoe has nothing to gain by starving anyone. Other than Marxist shitholes and welfare states, people don't actually live by taking the food out of other people's mouths.

Further, a) if Crusoe's property rights are secured he can afford to be generous if generosity is required, and b) if we're still talking about Crusoe's island as being the continent of Australia -- which we are -- then in these early stages of 'initial acquisition' there is plenty to go around; and c) if there isn't plenty to go around, then why on earth can you claim that the need of new arrivals is a claim on the work, energy, life, property or values of Crusoe? If these new arrivals want what he's got, they must either ask nicely for it or trade with him - and as the record of history shows, in places where property rights are protected that is precisely what happened, and by so doing everyone became richer thereby (see for example my piece on the 'miracle of breakfast' to explain how this happens).

Essentially, as we move away from the stage of 'initial acquisition' over time, if property rights are protected then a network of 'rights boundaries' emerges, within which each is free to exercise their moral space in pursuit of their values. Those boundaries emerge without the need of a central planner or of any utilitarian calculus by a benevolent dictator. As I say in my other recent piece on 'Freedom , Thick and Thin,' when each person is free to exercise his ingenuity over the values and resoures to which he has a right, it becomes clear that 'resources' are not in fact a zero-sum game that leaves me hungry if you eat too much pizza: there is instead an ever-increasing stream of new values being produced, which are themselves new resources for the production of new values, which ... etc. The ultimate resource, as I've sid many times before, is our minds, and the identification our mind make of the things that presently exist, and how we can move or transform them from lower value to a higher value.

Now, there is nothing wrong with taking some time and skull-sweat to understand the concept of rights - after all, the concept of rights wasn't even identified until just three-hunded years ago. The discovery of rights was a huge achievement, representing an enormous integration of a number of important facts and principles, including (as I've said before) the nature of human beings, the nature of trade and production, the nature of political freedom, the relevance of values, the nature of justice, the importance of the mind, etc.

You're not going to understand it overnight. But reflect on it, and you might.
"If we're talking about 'initial acquisition,' which we are at present, then there is no-one else making any claim on the 'resource' we're talking about."

Rubbish. Initial acquisition is simply the question of how rightful privatization occurs. Whenever it occurs, that involves the (alleged) establishment of a right to apply force against others to prevent them from using the "acquired" resource. If there was no-one else making claims on the resources, there would be no need for ownership rights!

Note that the central question we are asking here is, how can one acquire a right to prevent others from making use of a natural resource? You cannot answer this by imagining scenarios where no-one else has need of the resources in question -- the issue won't even crop up.

Let's offer a concrete example to make the problem plain to you.

Imagine a pasture that has not yet been privatized, so that anybody in the nearby village may use it. Can an individual come along and claim it for themselves, barring everyone else from making use of it? The "problem of initial acquisition" is to explain how such unilateral appropriation of common resources could be justified.

One appropriated, the owner has a right to bar others from using the resource. If the resource is the only food source in the area, then he can force everybody else to starve. The "problem of initial acquisition" is to explain how you could come to have such a right.

An absolute property right is forever. Once you own something, you can bar any newcomers from using it. But how can you acquire a permanent right over natural resources, without regard for all the people who will be harmed by your doing so?

You say we cannot plan in advance for every possible future contingency. That is exactly my point! Absolute property rights are not responsive to people's changing needs. By giving a permanent property right, you are saying, "this natural resource is yours and yours alone, come what may." How can you say that, if you cannot foresee the future? My argument is that you can't. It would be unjust.

You say, "we're talking here about 'initial acquisition' not later developments", but if initial acquisition is permanent, then it must take later developments into account. You don't just acquire a right to use the property today. You also acquire a right to prevent others from using it tomorrow. The question is, how could you possibly acquire such a right? That, again, is the 'problem of initial acquistion'.

I wrote: "How can you say that "Crusoe harms no one" when he forcably prevents other people (newcomers to the island, say) from taking the natural resources they need to survive? They will die, when if it weren't for Crusoe they could live."

To which you made the bizarre reply: "this is just laughably inaccurate and ignores the clear record of history."

It's a thought experiment, not a history lesson. It can't be "inaccurate", because I get to stipulate what happens. I'm asking you to imagine that newcomers came to the island, and the only food available was on land that Crusoe had claimed for himself. In this scenario, I stipulate that it is a brute fact that without the food, the newcomers will die. But if Crusoe didn't drive them away, then they would be able to eat the natural resources and survive. It follows, in this scenario, that "They will die, when if it weren't for Crusoe they could live."

The point of this thought experiment is to demonstrate how, in principle, the acquisition of absolute property rights can harm others. You say that "Crusoe has nothing to gain by starving anyone." But that's irrelevant. The point is, if he has an absolute property right to the only food on the island, then your theory entails that he has every right to starve the others. This absurd conclusion is a reductio of your theory. Or, at the very least, you must explain how anyone could come to have such a right. This, again, is the problem of initial acquisition.

I hope that you have a better idea of the problem now. So can you please quit dodging the issue, and actually start to address the problem of initial acquisition?

"You're not going to understand it overnight. But reflect on it, and you might."

Wow, I mean just... Wow. That's stunning. The irony meter is surely gonna blow on this one. *rolls eyes*
To help focus the problem for you, I remind you of my destructive reductio:

An absolute property right entitles the owner to dispose of their property however they wish -- even destroying it, if they so desire. But how could anyone acquire such a right? How could you have a right to destroy a natural resource, thereby preventing anyone else from ever making use of it? Is it not clear that you harm others by destroying natural resources that they could otherwise make use of?

The problem of initial acquisition is to explain how you could have a right to impose this sort of harm. So please. Explain away.
Richard, you've ignored the example we've started with -- Crusoe on the entire continent of Australia -- and you now wish to propose an example in which acquisition of property would have likely already occurred centuries before, ie., one pasture near an already functioning village.

And you've told me you wish to ignore actual history, ie., the actual concrete example of initial acquisition of land in the Jamestown colony, in favour of an imaginary, context-free flight of fancy of your own.

So who exactly is "dodging the issue"?

Reflect, Richard, reflect.
PC, I explained why your example was not a good one. And you seem remarkably ignorant about the existence of 'commons', if you cannot recognize the importance of the pasture example. Thought-experiments are a standard philosophical device for getting at the heart of an issue and testing underlying principles. Your reluctance to engage in this speaks to the inadequacy of your principles.

I have explained time and time again why your understanding of the issue is inadequate. (Either that, or you are simply intellectually dishonest and refuse to face up to the challenge.) My previous comments made it, I hope, extremely clear just what is at stake here -- just what the real issue is -- and you have refused to address it.

I ask you again: How can you acquire a permanent right to prevent others from accessing or making use of a natural resource?

If you are not willing to address this issue, then just say so and stop wasting my time.
Richard, your argument why the Australian example was a bad one was the following: "Note that the central question we are asking here is, how can one acquire a right to prevent others from making use of a natural resource?"

No, the central question for initial acquisition is, how do I cone to intially acquire a right in something.

"You cannot answer this by imagining scenarios where no-one else has need of the resources in question -- the issue won't even crop up."

Indeed, and I suggest looking at the record of history rather than just "imagining scenarios." But in any case, if we're talking about 'initial acquisition' and how we come to have a right to things, then let's start at the beginning, as the Crusoe example did. If you want an actual example then let's use Jamestown.

Inclosure of the commons was in most cases done voluntarily, as it was in Jamestown, and when it was done 'resources' were not 'withdrawn' but were enormously increased across the board. Such is the result of curing the 'tragedy of the commons,' a concept and a solution I'm sure you're familiar with.

But in any case, if we're talking about 'initial acquisition' and how we come to have rights in property, then let's start at the beginning, huh. As I've done. As we stand, you still haven't addressed that.

"Thought-experiments are a standard philosophical device for getting at the heart of an issue and testing underlying principles."

They're also a very good way of avoiding reality, and ignoring the actual cases of history. A long as they do, then any thought experiment is just a floating abstraction saying nothing about the world.

"I ask you again: How can you acquire a permanent right to prevent others from accessing or making use of a natural resource?"

Because it's yours. And I've said, argued and explained how this becomes yours.

"If you are not willing to address this issue, then just say so and stop wasting my time."

This is a joke, right?
In an attempt to clarify the debate, I've continued the discussion here.
okay then . I had the misfortune to study this question of land and basic resource for a few years in an alternate economics group. I say misfortune because it left me with bursts of despair at the inability of the human mind to break through it's own preconceptions .. yes, and my own preconceptions. It's not so much that we can be wrong about things, it is that we can cling to the right we do perceive, and become blind or unable to respond to all else.

It was not until, with considerable emotion, I found myself in NEED of the theory of this alternate economics that I was driven to connect it together, see what it implied in practice. Then I found that if i tried to explain to others, they often had a large body of popular economics theory which has to be negotiated or even destroyed to look at an alternative. This is next to impossible, ( especially given my lack of skill) unless they have an emotional need or dissatisfaction with the way things are.

I had also assumed that once you did manage to connect and get the point across, everyone would say ' of course .. lets do it that way. Its best for everyone long term."I was a fool yet again. It may be that in the end various people do have different, ingrained approaches to property rights in land and natural resource. It certainly doesn't seem subject to arguement anyway. Perhaps some territorial imperative in the male. It is defended by logic and if that fails, force. End of story ?

It could be supported in modern times too, by historical process. The right to land in england became with towns, the means of freedom from a feudal lord, or whoever had in the first instance acquired 'right' by force. A re-defining of property rights in land can therefore be seen as a disastrous loss of hard won freedom.

You would think it would do some good if I was to explain about what i see as simple and self evident economic truths here. It is very unlikely. Not only would there be a string of objections that would take FOREVER to respond to , I believe that most minds don't work like that. In the class for example, it was all carefully set up so that us students, one step at a time, ( over a while too) were forced by question and historical (and 'mind picture') example to acknowledge a simple obvious truth about property in land. Part of that being, as Richard has explained, that it is a monopoly so that if you have the exclusive use, no one else has. Others are excluded. This led to the way in which 'rights' to land (absolute), as the community grows, enables claim upon wealth to which one is not entitled. But is also let one see what WAS your own by right. It was not about denying rights but clarifying, what is yours and what the communities. It led one to see what set the true market value of your own labour, and the value given by the community as whole to that value.

What struck me particularly later was how far reaching it was .. how ingrained in popular thought anyway, NOT to think that way. And how astonishing it is to walk the streets of a city and see the theory happening "live" around one while others don't apparently see it. This all led to deeper questions about self and human nature.

Probably no one will care for what are only vague indications here, but if someone can just agree quietly that there is a problem with human understanding of things it might help a little.

oh well. good will to all.
Cue Card Libertarianism -- Force
I'm a bit confused, but you seem to be challenging the special status of The State.

That is, the fact that govts are allowed to do coercive things that individuals are not allowed to do.

1) Is that what you are challenging? The whole notion that the state is exceptional in that it is permitted a monopoly on coercion?

2) You say violence as "self defence" is morally okay. But do you really mean "self defence" as we usually mean it and as our courts interprete it. Or do you mean "violence to defend my property is morally okay"?.
Hi Icehawk. What I'm saying in a nutshel is 1) that the distinction between initiation of force and retaliatory force is crucial; 2) that calling both 'violence' collapses that important distinction; 3) that initiation of force should be outlawed; 4) that we each have a right to the exercise of retaliatory force, ie., force used in self-defence; 5) a government is the appropriate means of placing the retaliatory use of physical force under objective control.

Clear enough? :-)
Don't be smart
Coalition options
Good idee. No one will listen.
Liberty's birthday
Hey, Che
To todays youth [usually], Guevara is little more than a pop icon.

His actions are unknown, and his evil hasn't been understood.
Whatever gave it away? :-)

Actually, the thing I hate the most about Che is that unlike so many of the other socialist murderers, he's still incredibly popular - his deadly legacy is still perverting minds, especially those of the young.
I have a cartoon of Che wearing a Bart Simpson t-shirt :-)
“..was monumentally vain and epically stupid. He was shallow, boorish, cruel and cowardly. He was full of himself, a consummate fraud and an intellectual vacuum.” - and those were his good points!

I do think the “cowardly” charge is a little unbelievable. He did after all die while waging revolution in Bolivia when he could have been living it up in Havana. Because of this fact the cowardly charge will not impress the youngsters.
When breast is not always best (reposting)
Kyoto cockup
which actress and which bishop?
Yeah right, Helen
They are handing votes to the opposition hand over fist with all this - so look on the bright side. Someone commented on a forum I visit that Queen Helen will no doubt have a portrait of the Last Supper redone, with a her image replacing that of Jesus.
Join Action Orange
Legalisation protects quality
Creating a class system
The miracle of breakfast
When the statists proclaim they're going to eat the free market for breakfast that's not quite what they had in mind....
I want to be a consumer, sir
Top twenty searches for Not PC, to June 16th
"What nuisance?" And who came to it?
Hear Hear Only the idiot socialists will defend the nonsense that is the RMA.its like the people that moved next to Western Springs speedway and THEN had it closed down Selfish bastardsgd
What about the latest move to make housing a "Right"? We had better make some noise on that one!
Well said PC. Long live Lord Denning and Miller v Jackson, the case about the mad woman who moved next door to a cricket field, sued to close it down and very nearly succeeded. It's enough to make anyone ratty...
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Pakistani justice on menu at Musharraf trade talks?
Schiavo autopsy
It's clear now. Anyone with half the brain as mine and who is functionally blind can now be started or dehydrated to death. We live in a compassionate society after all.
We do indeed. If you want a religious take on it *man* and his science kept her alive. God wanted her dead 15 years ago or whenever it was. Compassionate enough?
Clear Ruth, warn me next time when you have a problem with an inflamed appendicitis and I make sure man and his science don't get to you. After all, God wants you dead.
Guess the therapy she was given by her parents didn't actually work.

Love is blind but it can also blind.

Re ruth's point, I think she was tryng to say, TS was so far gone that intervention was pointless. Was she really a person in that state?

the appendix comparison was invalid as interventions in such cases can usually turn someone around. Advanced terminal cancer might be a more apt comparison.
Glad to see that insider agrees that the court gets to decide who is a person and who isn't. And based on this, libertarianz seem to think anyone with half the size of my brain and functionally blind isn't.
I'm far from being a Libertarianz, if I read your implication correctly. Sorry to ruin your hypothesis.

Again you offer a false analogy. I never mentioned the courts deciding anything. Philisophically, the question is, can you be a 'person' if you have no 'personality' due to no brain function in the appropriate places and no hope of a return of that function?

It wasn't the size of her brain that was at issue - it was its functioning (or lack of). Reduced size was a symptom of lack of function, I'm assuming due to atrophy.

I suspect if she had been lying comatose with no bodily movements no one would have been concerned about ending feeding (it probably happens relatively regularly) - but because she exhibited some movements that gave the impression of purposeful brain function, she became a cause - yet there was likely little difference in terms of her brain activity with a comatose patient.

Looks can be deceiving.
If personhood depended on personality, then anyone without a personality would not be a person. Guess that means any high-achieving, introverted software engineers or actuaries aren't people.

Please. No failure of mind takes away someone's dignity as a person. While no extraordinary means should be employed to keep one alive, since when is water considered extraordinary. The woman died of dehydration, not natural causes. All the cheerleading of her death--and of the release of her autopsy report--is as disgusting as it is unsurprising.

Total autonomy has a double edge. Be careful whey you're the one others are making medical decisions about.
Stateless standards
'McJobs' a foundation for success
Bill of Rights birthday
The die-while-you-wait health system
If you do mean New Zealand then you are wrong. Because the dichotomy presented ("allocate by price or by govt line dictate") is a false dichotonomy. It would only be true if the only alternatives were purely private or purely public systems.

The NZ health system is a mixed public/private system, like England, Australia or most other western democracies.

Canada is not, it is a purely public health system.

(oh, and even a slightly nutty system like Canada's still gives vastly better health outcomes than the privatised US health care - despite costing much less. Because purely private health care systems have extraordinarily high administrative costs.)
Icehawk,

As a NZer in the USA let me tell you that you are talking shit. The health care provided by the US Private system is vastly superior to the NZ system. The insurance premiums vary between employers and will go down if the F---ing Dems let Bush change the law so that groups of small businesses (and hopefully private citizens) can bulk buy insurance cover.

In other words if the goddamned goverment got the f--k out of the way the US health system would be even better.
And public health care is not cheap. Don't only think about the $40 you pay to go see a doctor.

Think about all those lovely taxes they take - a portion thereof goes to tax. If even $200/month of your tax goes to health you'd have been better of in private healthcare.

Robert's right - let them butt out and let us take care of ourselves.

Anybody see Kim Hill grill Anette King last night? Well and truely roasted. "We don't have a waiting list".

Bloody political sophistry.
icehawk, it's a mix? You mean I can opt out of paying for the public one?

Oh you mean I have to pay for the public one AND the private one. The public one as a sorry excuse to Labour voters, and the private one to get anything done. Even Annette King recommends going private if you want something done before you're death.
If you live here in Christchurch it's just that you've been standing in the wrong queue!

It's a great show, and if you don't mind a bit of advertising I'd like to point out that DVD's of season two are being played every Tuesday night at 7:00 at Rationalist House, 64 Symonds Street, Central Auckland. Last night they looked at how evil P.E.T.A. are, and next week they'll look at the war of drugs. If you show up a bit early you could get the P.E.T.A. one replayed.

Cheers,

Hayden
Graham Kelly, diplomat
From Graham Kelly:

Our new immigrants from Asia are one of our biggest problems, with their lack of understanding of conservation and the environment. We often see them strip mining a beach of periwinkles and having a boil-up. If you are interested in the next generation, you cannot do that.

I'm curious at how 'often' have we seen them doing as mentioned above (seing them on TV or other media doesn't count ofcourse). I personally never seen it myself, but that's probably because I don't go to beach that often.
I'm a lot at the beach and I've never seen it. They like catching crabs and can prepare them deliciously. Thanks for sharing Asians.

But PC, what exactly did you think was "the truth"? All you can say about Maori history is that they fought with each other? And when the white man came he learned them to live peacefully together? You think that is what a representative of NZ can present as the summary of their history? Isn't that extremeley condescending?

That the man talks like that in the pub, ok, no one requires exactness there, but this clearly does do the Maori no justice.
With a name like that, Kelly sounds like a good working-class Irish Catholic boy. I guess his ethnic history can be summed up as: "Breed like rabbits; drop like flies. Pissed off when the tater crop failed sometime in the 19th century. Always drunk but good for a song and a yarn. U2 is cool. James Joyce a bit wanky. Disturbingly large proportion are lunatic religious bigots and fond of joining paramilitary terrorist organisations."

I don't think any of the above is inaccurate, but what the hell pertinence it would have to the Canadian Senate Standing Committee on Fisheries is beyond me.

For the record, I'm enormously proud of my Irish heritage but if I had to choose between Jerry Adams & Sin Fein or Tariana Turia & the Maori Party, well, I don't think the Horis come out of it badly.
So it's okay because it's "historically correct"? Leaving aside the question of how you actually come to that conclusion, Kelly is at least guilty of (in the lingo of statisticians) using a small sample to make generalisations of a population.

Not only is this kind of abuse of language disingenuous, it is also well below the standard we should expect of our representatives. For f**k's sake, this guy is a VERY senior official and an ex-MP. When he took on the job did he think Diplomacy was a board game?
graham kelly diplomat,now theres a tui billbourd if ever i saw one
A spiritual quest
Ha, I thought you opposed "self-ownership"? ;)

Seriously though, I'm in full agreement that autonomy is an important value. (Just see my frustrated argument with an authoritarian, here.)

I'm very much a social libertarian. But that's precisely why I'm not an economic libertarian: because I recognize that substantive freedom is what matters, and poverty can seriously impede that.

Our aim should be to enable as many people as possible to live the lives they want to live. To that end, we must ensure access to education, healthcare, and basic human needs like food and shelter, since all of these are essential prerequisites to any form of freedom worth having.

Autonomy doesn't exist "in a vacuum". It doesn't come from nowhere. It must be nurtured and developed, as with a flower or sapling. If you condemn a child to be raised in poverty, with no access to adequate healthcare or education, then he is not going to grow into a flourishing autonomous adult.

How is it that libertarians fail to see this?
Richard, you said, "Ha, I thought you opposed "self-ownership"? ;)

Yes, I felt sure you would pick that up. :-) It is an excellent shorthand metaphor, don't you think? Shame it's so easily misunderstood.

"I'm not an economic libertarian: because I recognize that substantive freedom is what matters..."

Freedom in the political context is not freedom from reality, no matter what label you want to put on it; as I've said before, freedom in the political context means no more nor any less than freedom from physical coercion.

It does not mean freedom from the laws of nature. If I am stuck down a well and there’s no one around to throw me a rope, no matter how you try and spin it that does not represent any lack of political freedom; it represents a lack of intelligence on my part in getting stuck down there.

"Our aim should be to enable as many people as possible to live the lives they want to live. To that end, we must ensure access to education, healthcare, and basic human needs like food and shelter, since all of these are essential prerequisites to any form of freedom worth having."

But these things don't grow on trees; they must first be produced by someone, and there's only two ways to get all those 'someones' to follow 'your aim'-- either by asking nicely, or by forcing them.

If for example 'your aim' is 'to ensure access' to shelter by insisting that builders be forced to provide it, then you haven't advanced freedom at all -- instead you've just enslaved the builders. If this is what you mean by 'ensuring access' to 'basic human needs' then your aim is not in fact freedom of any sort, it is slavery.

How is it 'social libertarians' fail to see this? :-P
The philosophical deduction of a genius
Why libertarians don't own their own bodies
Philosophy student??? Oh God... if I didn't have such respect for Richard Goode, I would be exercising my right to say nasty things and to laugh condesendingly
Robin - ha, yeah, reckon, who needs to think? Why, that might get in the way of our right to show off our pig ignorance!

PC - Cheers. I've got a detailed response of my own, here.
Hell of an apology
I don't know about you, but Hell has now become the preferred supplier of artery-clogging, death-dealing pizza in our house. :)
RMA kills $6.5 million exhibition centre
Michael Jackson verdict
I do.
"The acquittals marked a stinging defeat for Santa Barbara County District Attorney Tom Sneddon, who displayed open hostility for Jackson and had pursued him for more than a decade"

This was good - justice for those who go on jihad. It's not a crime to be weird, or rich.
"Don't care" PC? Suprise suprise.But then truth or falsehood has never been a major thing with you has it?...see campaign against Jim Peron..
James, I could probably add you to that list of things I don't care about, couldn't I? If I cared enough.
Two views on China
Considering the students who soak up Western ideas and culture like greedy little sponges only to return home I'd agree with you. For now, their authoritarian government allows them the freedom to complete public works projects that are required to keep them competitive with the rest of the world. But once large projects like the Three Gorges Dam is completed ... there is such an influx of business and trade and life that it will be impossible to cling to their current model and the good it could do would have been accomplished anyway.
Excellent point tincanman - The bigots call to reduce the numbers of students from mainland China because they come from an authoritarian state is absurd. My argument has always been that to do so would cut off our best oppurtunity to espouse to the youth of China the benefits of freedom.
Crystal Heights
The 2005 Big Mac Index
Asian Labour News assembled their own Big Mac Index, measuring how long a typical McDonalds employee had to work to earn enough to buy a Big Mac.

See Rising Hegemon for details.
icehawk, very interesting. And really weird numbers.

Because you can get an entire day of meals at McDonald, it would imply that in certain countries you cannot earn enough money to buy food. As they people are working, that implies that is not true, else they wouldn't have the strength to work.

Would that mean burgers in those countries are overvalued? I.e. targeted at "rich" foreigners instead of the local market like in US/NZ? Any insight on that?
Iraq war pits 'freedomist' against 'libertarian'
Building the slums of tomorrow
What rubbish from the Herald, you and Bhatnagar.

"Residents in the predominantly state housing suburb of Glen Innes are aghast at plans for high-density housing, fearing it will be a social disaster, bring more crime and reduce private property values."

If you rely on govt handouts you forfeit the right to complain about such things. It ain't houses turning communities into ghettos, its the welfare queens and other losers who live there. If you don't want to live in crappy high density( and I don't see who is forcing you to), get off your fat ass and get a job.

Another arrow hits the mark :-/
Ruth you said, " What rubbish from the Herald, you and Bhatnagar."

You know, you really should read properly before you comment.

As I said in my own article to which I linked, this high-denisty intensification of parts of Auckland is a direct result of the ARC's 'Plan Change 6' which is an attempt to force people out of cars, and is a heavy-handed planning measure that has that as its only goal. As a consequence the ARC are insisting on a) high-density intensification of selected parts of Auckland, with MINIMUM densities and MINIMUM heights for any new development on those sites; and b) making rural Auckland a virtual National park, with resource consent required for damn near everything.

Although HOusing NZ has a lot of existin ghouses here, AFAIK the high-density dwellings being talked about here are not council houses, but private houses, for which Hucker's council planners will now be specifying in great detail how they are to be designed. These are the planners responsible for the 'delightful' Aotea Sqaure, the bunker-like Aotea Centre, and the 'marvellously breezy' QEII Square.

So in answer to your rant, relying on govt handouts or not is utterly irrelevant - to the extent the ARC and the City Council are successful, Aucklanders ~will~ eventually be forced into crappy high-density housing, and the high-density will be made to be crappy by being built to council designs. Comprende?

"Another arrow hits the mark."

I guess not.
Legal warning for bloggers
We've got an interesting loop effect going where the media are reading blogs to guage public opinion and then being critical because we use their info as the basis for our opinions!

Yes, I guess bloggers could be "breaking defamation and name suppression laws" but no more than in the old days when people would gossip about the identity - often getting it wrong. We'll be no different.

The big question is if bloggers are given more credibility than any other gossip in the country today? I suspect most people know that our opinions are just that!

And should Graham be able to sue me for the comments I make here, on my site, or anywhere else? No. I should be able to say what I think based on information in the public domain.

If I come up with anything new, then perhaps but I haven't read anything that couldn't be directly traced back to media reports.

Sarah
Fighting back against the thugs
The police can't come ...
Cue Card Libertarianism -- Freedom (Liberty)
The interpretation of the word freedom really depends on cultural background. What you are talking abotu is the Western interpretation. In many Eastern countries freedom means 'not to be bothered'. In other words, Europeans want to be free to do things and and other people want to be free from doing what they do not want.
Kiwi carnival - "Bring out your posts!"
Political abuse
Blast I left my directory of insulting quotations at home in NZ. I do remember these ones the first was aimed at M Thatcher by I reporter whose name I forgot (sorry)

"The face that launched a thousand dredges"

"[Clement Attle is] a sheep in sheep's clothing." Winston Churchill

"Clement Attlee is a modest man who has a good deal to be modest about." Winston Churchill

Lady Astor: "Winston, if I were your wife I'd put poison in your coffee."Winston: "Nancy, if I were your husband I'd drink it."
In times of disorder and stress, the fanatics play a prominent role; in times of peace, the critics. Both are shot after the revolution. - Edmund Wilson -

But this is what most political bloggers do - just blow off about the "other" side saying nothing a thinking person may be interested in. People don't read Michael Moore or Rush Limbaugh to be intellectually challenged - they read it to reinforce their prejudices.
Hi Peter,

On the merits of this posting I've added you to my blogs list.

Greg

www.gmaninc.blogspot.com/
Lady Astor to Winston Churchill at a state banquet (I think).

Lady Astor: "You sir are drunk."

Churchill: "And you madam are ugly, I however shall be sobre in the morning."
"How can they tell?"- Dorothy Parker, on being told that Calvin Coolidge was dead.